Sony joins the patent party with two-way folding device

Its two screens can rotate on multiple axes

Sony has filed with the U.S. Patent and Trade Office for a two-screened tablet that rotates on multiple axes, meaning the screens can be configured a number of ways.

By utilizing some clever hinges and a pinch of magic dust, the new device would allow users to flip the screens around to have them next to or on top of one another.

In short, a "connection apparatus," as the patent filing puts it, allows two "casings" to be "rotated relatively in one of a first rotation direction and a second rotation direction orthogonal to each other between a first state and a second state."

The filing itself is filled to bursting with detailed and indecipherable technical descriptions, though suffice to say Sony's got all the bases covered in this patent.

You look familiar

Sony's hardly the first to come up with a folding dual-screened device.

Nintendo's DS line of handheld gaming systems, including the new 3DS XL, has been folding since 2004.